Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from thehighest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding andjubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his workgood. . . . Prayer that craves a particular commodity, any-thing less than all good, is vicious. . . . Prayer as a means toeffect a private end is meanness and theft.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Voltaire replied to a report of the saving of a sparrow byprayer:

I believe in a general Providence which has laid down forall eternity the law which governs all things, like light fromthe sun; but I believe not that a particular Providencechanges the economy of the world for your sparrow.

Father Teilhard de Chardin had this to say aboutmiracles:

Personally, I have no difficulty in accepting miracles,providing (and this, in fact, is precisely what the churchteaches) the miracle does not run counter to the continuallymore numerous and exact rules we are finding in thenatural evolution of the world. (In fact, taking even thegospel marvels in the form they are often presented in,I feel obliged to admit that I believe not because of but inspite of the miracles I am offered. And I am sure thatthat is the unacknowledged position of a great manyChristians.)